Monday, January 24, 2005

Arachnophobia II - Necrotising Arachnidism

There I was, peacefully working away at my desk, when a little spider runs out & hides under my mouse. I notice a telltale white spot on the end of its abdomen.
I ask the local naturalist-type "does this look like a white-tailed spider to you?".
He says, "yeah, it looks like a baby one".
It dashes out from under the mouse & takes shelter under my space bar. So of course I take the obvious next step. I Google it, "White Tail Spiders Australia - Biology, Identification, First Aid & Control".
Yup, its a one of them alright. But now it doesn't want to come out from the keyboard, and its tricky trying to enter a Google query while poking the space bar from a distance. After a while of trying to send an email to my wife saying "hey there's a white-tailed spider under my space bar" and replying to her message asking why I don't squish it (cause I can't reach under there!), it comes out and wanders brazenly around the desk a bit.
I don't know what killed it - the bug spray, or drowning.
I hope it hasn't got any brothers or sisters around here from its disc shaped egg sac containing up to 90 eggs.

Gender Equality - The final frontier

With an issue this important, I'm expecting there will be some major protest action down on the beaches. No, its not the foreshore debate, its 'breast equality'.